North Reading Cinemas

garydwyer on December 3, 2023 at 7:13 am

I remember going to this cinema when I was a kid in the mid-1970s. My grandparents lived at the Park Colony apartment complex next door to the cinema and it was an easy way to get me out of the house during vacation periods. Lots of kids lived at the Park Colony and Saturday and Sunday matinees were really popular.

It was a second-run house but I remember it being well run and reasonable (Grandmother would give me $3.00 and that was enough for a ticket, popcorn and a drink).

Used to play a lot of the Sun International Movies - In search of Noah’s Ark; In search of Historic Jesus; Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, etc. Remember seeing Jaws there months after it was playing at first run theatres. Also remember my Grandmother going with me to see “Tommy” and leaving 5 minutes into the film.

Last film I saw there was in 1982 when we went to see “On Golden Pond” in the upstairs “Screening Room” - very small and the screen was as large as my TV at home is now.

In 1983 I started working for General Cinema Theatres as an usher, worked my way up through the organization and wound up managing several of their locations at the Burlington Mall and Northshore Mall in Peabody.